One Shot
by Runaway Fox
Summary: Not owned by me, written originally by Lee Child.


**A/N: This story isn't made by me, but it's still ok. Tails won't be introduced until chapter 3, but it's worth it, trust me. anyways, enjoy!**

Tails as a military cop chapter 1

Friday. Five o' clock in the afternoon. Maybe the hardest time to move unobserved through a city. Or maybe the easiest, because at five o' clock on a Friday nobody pays attention to anything except the road ahead.

The black fox with the rifle drove south. Not fast, not slow, not drawing any attention nor standing out. He was in a light-colored minivan that had seen better days. He was alone behind the wheel. He was wearing a light-colored raincoat and the kind of shapeless light-colored beanie hat that old people wear on the golf course when the sun is out or the rain is falling. He was also wearing gloves and sunglasses, even though it wasn't hot or cold.

He drove up to abandoned warehouse 5 stories high, got out with his a rifle in a bag and put a quarter in a little parking meter, and the meter gave him one hour in exchange. He just stared at the meter and watched a minute tick away. 59 minutes. He wouldn't need 59 minutes. He took the stairs to the roof and revealed the rifle. It was a Springfield M1A Super Match autoloader, American walnut stock, heavy premium barrel, chambered for the .308. It was the exact commercial equivalent of the M-14 self-loading sniper rifle that the American military had used during his long-ago years in the service. It was a fine weapon. It was loaded with Lake City M852s, his favorite custom rounds: Special Match City Lake brass, Federal powder, Sierra Matchking 168-grain hollow point tail bullets.

He listened to the silence and lifted the rifle off the rear bench, onto a metal rail near the edge. Rested the end of the forestock on the rail and looked in the scope. Breathed in and out, clearing his mind. _One shot, one kill._ That was the sniper's credo. To succeed required control and stillness and calm.

_Ready._

_ Infiltration successful._

_ Now kill the target._

He noticed that a NBC peacock was staring at him, like it was trying to say _don't do it._ He ignored it.

There were a lot of people. People in suits walking out of buildings with briefcases, federal people funneling into a street like ducks in a shooting gallery. _A target-rich environment._ He mused. The range was about a 100 feet. Certainly less than thirty-five yards. V_ery close._

The fox pulled the trigger, and kept on pulling.

His first shot hit a hedgehog in the head and killed him instantly. The gunshot was loud and there was a super-sonic _crack_ from the bullet and a puff of pink mist from the head and the guy went straight down like a puppet with the strings cut.

_A kill with the first cold shot._

_ Excellent._

He worked fast, left to right. The second shot hit the next man in the head. Same result as the first, exactly. The third shot hit a woman in the head. Same result. Three shots in maybe 2 seconds. Absolute surprise. No reaction for a split second. Then chaos broke out. Pandemonium. Panic. There were twelve people caught in the narrow space between a plaza and a pool wall. Three were already down. The remaining nine ran. Four ran forward and five spun away from the corpses and ran back. Those five people collided with the press of people still moving their way. There were sudden loud screams. There was a solid wall of panicked beings, right in front of the fox with the rifle. Range, less than thirty-five yards: very close.

His fourth shot killed a hedgehog in a suit. His fifth missed completely. The Sierra Matchking passed close to a woman's shoulder and hissed straight into the ornamental pool and disappeared. He ignored it and moved the Springfield's muzzle a fraction, and his sixth shot caught a guy on the bridge of his nose and blew his head apart.

The fox with the rifle stopped shooting.

He ducked low behind the warehouse wall and crawled backward three feet. He could smell burnt powder and over the ringing in his ears he could hear women screaming and feet pounding and the crunch of panicked fender benders on the street below. _Don't worry little animals,_ he thought. _It's over now. I'm out of here._ He lay on his stomach and swept his spent shell cases into a pile. The bright Lake City brass shone right there in front of him. He scooped five of them into his gloved hands but the sixth rolled away and fell into an unfinished expansion joint. Just dropped right down a trench into the nine-inch deep, half-inch wide trench. He heard the tiny metallic sound as it hit the bottom.

_Decision?_

_ Leave it, surely._

_ No time._

He jammed the five cases he had in his raincoat pocket and crawled backward on his toes and his forearms and his belly. He lay still for a moment and listened to the screaming. Then he came to his senses and stood up. Turned around and walked back to the same way he had come, fast but in control, over the rough concrete, along the walkway planks, through the dark and the dust, under the yellow-and-black tape. Back to his minivan.

_Good work,_ he thought. _Covert infiltration, six shots fired, five targets down, successful exfiltration, as cool as the other side of the pillow._

Then he smiled suddenly. Long-term military records show that a modern army scores about one enemy fatality for every fifteen thousand combat rounds expended by its infantry. But for its specialist snipers, the result is better. Way better. Twelve and a half _thousand_ times better, as a matter of fact. A modern army sniper scored one enemy fatality for every one-point-two combat rounds expended by a sniper. And for one-point-two happened to be the same batting average as five for six. So even after all those years a trained military sniper had scored exactly what his old instructors would have expected. They would have been very pleased about that.


End file.
